To understand the operations of the secret society that organised the insurrection in Macedonia, it is necessary to bear in mind the condition of the country at that time. The Christian peasantry in Macedonia had suffered terribly from the pitiless methods employed by the Turks in suppressing any signs of insurrection, but during the latter years of the Hamidian _régime_ they had to suffer even worse things, in consequence of the cruel internecine war which they waged among themselves. The various races that make up the population of Macedonia had for long been carrying on their several national propaganda. The three independent States on Macedonia’s borders, Greece, Bulgaria, and Servia, were working with the Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs under Turkish rule, with a view to territorial expansion in this region, so soon as the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, to which they looked forward with confidence, should come to pass. But in Macedonia there are no extensive districts exclusively inhabited by Greeks, Bulgarians, or Serbs. The different races are intermingled, and it is not unusual to find Mussulman Turks and Christians of each of three races living side by side in the same village. Consequently, as each of the three States above mentioned aspired to the reversion of all territory occupied by people of its own race, there was nearly everywhere an overlapping of claims; and it became the policy of each State to gain influence in a coveted district and there secure the numerical superiority of people of its own race, so as to be able to establish a strong title to possession when the Powers should undertake the dismemberment of Turkey. This racial rivalry was embittered by religious fanaticism. Formerly the Greek Orthodox Church exercised an exclusive influence over the Bulgarian as well as Greek population of Macedonia, and all recognised the Patriarch as their spiritual head. The Bulgarians resented the tyrannical ecclesiastical ascendency of the Greeks, and a schism arose which was deliberately widened by the Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz, who conceded to the Bulgarians the right to separate from the Greek Church and appoint an Exarch of their own. The Patriarch excommunicated the first Exarch and all who gave their allegiance to him, and since then there has been bitter hatred between the Orthodox and the schismatics. Of the Bulgarians in Macedonia, some have remained faithful to the Orthodox Church, while the majority acknowledge the spiritual headship of the Exarch. Now in Turkey populations are reckoned according to creed and not race, and in the census returns a Bulgarian who was a member of the Orthodox Greek Church would appear as a Greek. Therefore, for political, as well as religious, reasons the Greeks and Bulgarians strove hard to snatch from each other the control of the schools and churches in any district where there was a Bulgarian population, and employed violence and every form of persecution to secure converts.